Tyler Johnson was always drawn to the creative hustle. Since being handed his first camera at 16-years-old, he saw the potential for a career in media and chased it. From selling photos in coffee shops to working at GoPro during the company’s meteoric rise, Johnson has focused on living an action-packed, content-driven life. Now, he’s not only an ambassador for Insta360, gear brands Freefly Systems, Irix, Kessler and more, the San Digeo-based videographer runs his own production company, OL’TJP Films. Right now, Johnson's ambition is at an all-time high.

Utilizing the latest action cameras, customized & DIY rigs, and a think-big-or-go-home mindset, Johnson strives to create eye-popping content for brands, athletes, and his personal channels. Here, he shares his insights from years of editing video for digital audiences; discusses some of his favorite gear; explains how to “stack creativity” to achieve the best shot; and encourages filmmakers to adopt a go-getter mindset. “It's up to you to stand out, go after jobs, and secure your bag,” he says. “So you can keep doing what you love for a living!”

Hey Tyler, where are you calling from today?

We're over in Carlsbad, California… been here for about eight years now. It's a really beautiful place. You have access to the beach, you have access to mountains inland, just a couple hours. It's a pretty nice central hub for everything. I moved here from the Bay Area when I worked at GoPro. For the last six years or so, I've been just running my own production house, OL'TJP Films.

Your time at GoPro coincided with the company's meteoric rise —that must've been a crazy time to be a filmmaker there. How does that experience still shape your approach?

I was already shooting everything on fisheye lenses—to have such a compact fisheye that I could mount to my buddy's bike or strap to our heads, that was huge. It opened up our eyes to what's possible, getting the camera into really unique positions and then making the camera move neatly. It was super inspirational. Working there with some of the most creative people I've ever met, going on productions with some of the best athletes in the world, and knowing that we had endless cameras & mounts—it was up to us to push the limits and make the best content we possibly could. We got to see the rise of this this massive empire, and the quality was always getting better. Those action cameras opened a lot of doors, capable of things that still aren't possible on other cameras.

What is it about working with these action cameras that makes the viewing experience so unique?

It really just puts you in the athletes' shoes. I can just grab a camera, whether it's a two-dimensional or 360 lens, and I can simply hold it out to capture footage. The stabilization is gonna handle all the jitter. So I can easily run around, shoot behind the scenes, and bring the viewer along with me. That was always our thing at GoPro: Let's bring the viewer with us, make 'em feel like they're there. We would treat the camera almost as a person, like our best friend whose along for the journey. It seems like nowadays what really resonates with people is cell phone content, because it feels like anyone could shoot it. But it comes in waves.

Let's talk rigs. I can see your wall behind you full of gear. What draws you into this aspect of video?

I love scaling things, the most fun and challenging rigs are the ones that scale. Back in the day, we used to put spin-mounts on the skier's heads, so I took that idea & built several rigs to use with a car with extensions so that the camera was low to the ground, spinning around it. Another one was rigging up a zip line that went through a car while it was driving; that led me to recreating it in Italy for a company, which was really cool.

I also just love doing motion control hyper-lapses. You just take a motion control head, put a giant jib on it and a camera on the end with a counterweight. You can swing that camera through three-dimensional space within a 20 foot range. That's really unique, especially when you put an Insta360 or a DSLR with a gimbal on it. The Kessler CineShooter+ has enough strength that it can pan that thing for eight hours at a time, and you're able to get these huge, motion-control time-lapses that you would never be able to get with a traditional slider or a drone.

You're enticed by motion, scale, and movement—what gear are you using to achieve your vision right now? 

I work with Insta360 very closely now, and they have a range of products, like cameras the size of your thumb with 4K, which is so nuts. You can put these cameras in even crazier spots than you could a traditional one. The Insta360 X4 is now in 8K and 4K, with hundred frames a second. I also love my Kessler motion control gear—it's always been rock solid and fun to combine with other pieces. Steven Donovan (@es_dons) makes the FpoleV, these 30-foot pole cams; putting a 360 camera on it is just phenomenal. They're super lightweight carbon fiber, built strong and just really well made. You can get it really close to the action in ways you could never get otherwise. Lastly, the Ember camera from Freefly Systems with 600 frames per second in 5K is also a treat to use... seeing the world in high-resolution slow motion like that… there's nothing like it.

In terms of editing & computer programs, I've been working with Topaz Labs recently, seeing the possibilities of taking old footage, as well as new, and having AI de-noise and sharpen shots. It's honestly mind-blowing how much better some of my content looks even with just that little bit of enhancement. You can upscale; you can “slow-mo” content that wasn't before… you can actually zoom in way further and go past what normally looks good. If you have a 4K camera, now it's like you have a 6K camera thanks to these enhancements. It does the same with photos—I took some childhood photos, ran it through Topaz, and it made it look like 4K.

How do you get your ideas out of your head and into the world? What's your process?

I call it “stacking creativity.” I take either the gear I have, or the item that we're gonna shoot, or whatever it might be, and then I try to think of the absolute best shot we could get. Then I ask what would make it better; I push myself until the point where if we plan to do anything more, it becomes too much. I try to find the sweet spot focusing on getting the absolute best moments—we aim to have one or two of those per shoot—and then a bunch of behind the scenes, B-roll around it. I just try and push myself to my limit of possibility. You build a something unique and then you start chipping away at it. If things start to fall apart, you have backups and and through that, you’ll likely create some pretty cool stuff. Going through this process, you're really pushing yourself. You're pushing your own work. You're trying to create something that hasn't been done before, or a very high level of something that has been done before.

Once you have the footage, what's the key to a well-organized media library?

The biggest one for me is folder structure—create a folder for every project, but start with the year, then the month, then the day. As you scrub through all your hundreds of files of different shoots, it organizes it by year. For example, this project I’m seeing is “240830_”. The second biggest thing is creating a RAW folder in a Live Work folder. First, you have all your raw assets from different cameras, each one has its own folder. Live Work is anything from Premiere files to color, graphics, After Effects, exports, deliverables, music, all that stuff live. The last thing is an Excel spreadsheet where every drive has its own column that shows which drive has which shoots on it. When I want to pull up X Games footage from 2013, I just search in Excel and I can see exactly where it lives on the drive.

Talk about the importance of mentorship in film & digital content creation.

Working at GoPro, I was definitely was surrounded by mentors. I really learned a ton and I really grew into this proficiency where I can just show up to a shoot know exactly what we need to do to succeed. Now, I’m working on my Patreon where I have a ton of articles that I've written and video content that should help the beginner filmmaker as well as the pro. I'm creating my Masterclass right now dives into pre production, post production, what I think about when I'm shooting, everything I know along the way; also just very basic, but helpful, ways to move the camera, understanding what camera movements do, things like that.

I always tell people to get psyched on the people & brands that you want to work with, then go show them how excited you are about it. You just have to reach out to people; even if you don't get a reply, hit them up again in six months, a year, and they’ll see that consistency over time. You can provide people value even just verbally, saying “I love your brand, I love what you guys are doing. I'd love to work with you one day.” If you're sitting there just scrolling, you might as well be sending messages to people that you want to work with. One day, it’ll work out!

What have you learned from digital audiences over the years?

It's funny, there's definitely a format that really sucks people in and gets people to watch. There's all those videos of Mr. Beast explaining how he does it, how he makes everything that he puts out viral. I try not to conform my videos to that stuff, though. TikTok, it’s like a lottery ticket—every time you post it could blow up. The main point is like getting content out there. There's a valid reason to create as much as you can. Good or bad, get it out there. But that's just one way to do things. Another would be to really pour into something, try to make something valuable that really hooks people, put more eggs into one basket.

Even if you pour your whole life into an idea and then you get 50 views, you can't be disappointed. You can always repost it later, you can always adjust something and try again. As long as you're happy with your content and it makes you proud, that's what's important.

In your circles, what's the talk of the town right now? What has people buzzing? 

Cameras are coming out left and right. Everyone's wondering, which brands are going to do what? There's been a lot of breakthrough in quality and resolution recently. That's one thing. AI is also a bit of the talk… everyone's always wondering, “Oh, when is it going to come to steal our job?” I don't know. I'm happy doing this until the wheels fall off and there's a floating AI camera that captures the world around it so beautifully with precision that it replaces the physical person holding a camera… until that happens, I'm happy doing this…

Lastly, what's one thing you hope to see more in the video community?

We need more go-getter attitude. If you're creative and you're a go-getter, you'll eventually reach out to enough people where you’ll find something to do. You'll find a way to make money. That's how I see it.  It's up to you to stand out, go after jobs, and secure your bag so you can keep doing what you love for a living!

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